There is an INTERACTIVE MAP of our trip.
May 15th
David and Stacy meet Dan and Christy in western PA to visit “Falling Water”. They say in an offhand manner, “We are going to Italy on the 25th. Wanna come?” Dan and Christy say yes (OK, it was HELL YES!!) and proceed to get the time off from work, rooms in all the same hotels, and flights in and out of Venice airport within an hour of ours. Impressive, isn’t it?
May 25th
We had discovered that flying from Boston instead of New York would save us about $100 per person. Since we knew people in Boston, we did the following:
We checked in at Logan and flew Air France from Boston to Paris where a few days earlier the terminal had collapsed from French engineering. As the plane landed the flight attendant announces that she needs to speak with us (over the intercom). We meet her at the door to the plane and she asks for our tickets. Since the woman at the check-in desk at Logan didn’t give us tickets, only boarding passes, we were very confused and our lack of ability to speak French meant that the only word she caught of our statement “We thought that we had e-tickets for this flight.” was e-ticket and so she kept saying OK and waved us on. Since the lack of a terminal led Air France to park the planes miles away and then have passengers take buses to the terminals we were running a bit late for our connection to Venice. At the terminal, some guy says wait here for the other Venice passengers and then follow me. He leads us to some guys stamping passports and after we go through that line some woman runs up and tells the rest of our group “No, no, no” and leads them somewhere else. Now we are stuck inside Charles de Gaulle needing to go through security and catch our flight to Venice. We start running and get to security and luckily have very small lines. We then run to our flight’s gate and hand the woman our paperwork. She then asks for our tickets. We try to explain we thought we had e-tickets so we have nothing to give her. She says someone must have screwed up and taps furiously into her computer. After about 5 minutes, she says OK get on the plane but unless you get the tickets for your return flight you will have to buy new flights back to Boston. At this point our theory is that the woman at Logan printed out paper tickets for us and then did not give them to us because of some mistake.
At the airport in Venice, Stacy goes to customer service to try and see if they can contact Boston about our plane tickets, but not much is accomplished except being told they can issue new tickets for $100/person. Also, they will try to contact Logan airport by e-mail and when we are at the airport in 5 days to pick up David’s family, Stacy can see if they have any tickets from Boston. Meanwhile, David is awaiting Dan and Christy from Virginia and then getting the rental car. The rental car staff are all apologetic that the Audi we reserved is unavailable. Instead they have to give us the Jaguar X, but the price is the same. We get our rental car and drive to Verona.
In Verona, we stayed at a nice bed and breakfast across the street from the Adige River. The Romeo and Juliet stuff was pretty much skipped since not one of us four cared to see it. Dan and David had to climb the top of the tall campanile and take pictures. We saw a few interesting churches. Then we visited the Roman amphitheater which had some great views of the river. The colosseum in the center of town was being readied for the summer season when they present various productions. Dinner was an introduction to the changes in Italy since the last trip (2000). Pizza was on the menu everywhere. Or, maybe it was because we were visiting a different (or more touristy) region of Italy than the last trip.
May 26th
Next morning we drove into the Dolomite region. It had been difficult finding a place to stay here because it was too late for ski season. We found a very German hotel in the town of Ora/Aura. This is the land of everything with both a German and Italian name. This was useful because Dan could speak rudimentary German and none of us spoke decent Italian – despite Stacy’s heritage.
Because it was not ski season there were also very few open restaurants. However, there was a good one a short walk from our hotel and we ate several good German meals there. Speck and beer were consumed on several occasions.
After checking into the hotel, we took the first of two drives into the Dolomites. Dan and David were very happy to be behind the wheel of a Jag. The roads were VERY windy and steep. Watching the buses full of German tourists maneuver these roads was quite a sight.
May 27th
We were awoken early this morning by the departing busload of German tourists. After checking out of our hotel, we took the second drive into the Dolomites on our way to Aquileia. We stopped at lake Carezza and then found an open ski lift. The ride up was not fun for those afraid of heights, but there was snow at the top!
In Aquileia, we stayed at a hostel where there was a woman on the staff who let us use her cell phone. This is important because we had tried to contact Air France but those press this number menus do not work when the phones are “pulse” not “tone”. Some of you will be old enough to remember that. Unfortunately, the time difference was not in our favor and Stacy never got a person. However, listening to lots of recordings jogs her memory that many months ago David got an envelope from Air France in the mail. He has no recollection of this and insists we got e-tickets.
May 28th
Aquileia was once the fourth largest city in the Roman empire. Now, it is a small farming town far from the sea. However, it is on the way to Grado which is a modern beach resort. However, a lot of the Roman stuff still survives. The Basilica has an enormous Roman mosaic floor with a glass walkway that allows you to see everything in great detail. The Roman floor continues into the crypt. Out in a field were buildings with mosaic floors that used to be Roman villas. In another field they have excavated the old forum. Down the street from our hostel was a museum that had so many cremation urns they were just stacked in a pile outside and so many mosaics they were just stacked on their sides and leaned against buildings. Some mosaics were geometric, some were pictoral and some were religious. Aquleia is also a World Heritage Site and the “port” is excavated.
May 29th- June 4th
We drove from Aquileia to the airport in Venice. Since Aquileia is close to Croatia, we saw a lot of large trucks on the highways. We also saw “forests” of perfectly straight rows of trees along the highway. After buying gas we say goodbye to the Jag at the airport in Venice.
At the airport, David decides to try a different tactic. He goes upstairs to the executive offices for the airlines. He tells the woman that we had e-tickets and for some reason we are having all these problems and people asking for paper tickets, etc. She runs a new set of boarding passes for us that now have the word e-ticket on them. Other than that, they look identical to the boarding passes we received at Logan. Now, we can go home at the end of our trip.
David’s family arrive. We private water taxi to S. Angelo, the dock for our square which involves a ride through the Grand Canal. The apartment is off of the Campo S. Angelo. In the movie “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade”, he goes into the church in this square at the beginning of the movie. The apartment is on the Calle degli Avvocati (street of the lawyers). Lee thought this quite fitting. It was also close to a good shop to buy gelato.
The first afternoon we go to St. Mark’s square in the first of many visits. There are people everywhere and a lot of pigeons. The grossest sight was of people putting these “flying rats” on their body and then posing for pictures.
Over the next few days, we visited many sights:
We discovered that a sit down gondola ride is both expensive and silly, but for about 50 eurocents/person, you can “commute” across the canal in a traghetto – all you have to do is stand the whole ride (4 minutes).
We visited the island of Murano and watched the glass blowers. The only purchases for David and Stacy (the big shoppers) was a vase and a wine bottle stopper. Dan and Christy, however, bought lights for their dining room, but that is a whole ‘nother story.
We took the vaporetto to the island that has St. Maggiore on it. This offered the photographers gorgeous views of the Doge’s palace and St. Mark’s Square.
We ate pizza a lot for lunch (was this because of the tourists or have Italians discovered pizza?). We usually made dinner in the apartment.
The last evening we were there was some festival (Pentacost?) and there were fireworks. We had a fairly good view from our apartment.
June 3rd
We took public transportation back to the airport and saw a few large cruise ships along the way. It also gave a view of the Lido. At the airport, David and Stacy have no problems. However, Dan and Christy discover the skies above London are in turmoil and they don’t have a plane yet. The plane would be delayed but Dan and Christy should have time to make their connection back to VA. [Actually, it was VERY close since Heathrow got straightened out much faster than the other airports and their Venice – London flight was not into Heathrow.]
Stacy and David get back to Boston with no problems except they happen to be on the same route that R. Reid (aka Shoe Bomber) had been on not long before. About every 3rd passenger who boarded the Paris to Boston flight was being screened. It was extremely efficient, and Stacy only had to leave the nail file part of her nail clippers behind to get onto the plane.
After we arrived in Boston, we took the T to Arlington and the taxi to our friends’ house. We retrieved the car keys and drove back home after a VERY long day.
sometime in June
Stacy remembers the mysterious envelope. Buried under one of the famous ”Elliott piles” is an envelope from Air France. Inside this envelope are PAPER tickets for Stacy and David to fly from Boston to Venice via Paris.
Fini